Our Congolese Adoption

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Why siblings?

As a follow-up to yesterday's Why the Congo, today's question is "Why siblings?"

Most people think we are absolutely nuts for saying we will adopt more than one child at a time, but we always reiterate that the chances of that happening are slim, considering the fact that not many adoptions out of the Congo are sibling groups. That said, here are reasons we are open to a sibling group:

First of all, not many couples are open to adopting multiple children at one time. That's not to say that it's never done, but there are definitely more people who want to adopt just one child at a time, and that's why we are open to more than one if need be. We might only get one child, but we don't want immediately say no when there is a sibling group that shouldn't have to be separated. Those kids have already been through enough, so we'd hate to see families separated when we could do something to keep them together. Now, as a disclaimer, this could go nuts in several ways, leaving us with an overwhelmingly expensive adoption and multiple new mouths to feed, but we are open to learning about sibling groups even if we ultimately decide it's not what's best for our family. We will take into account Brody's age, as we have read a little bit about birth order and the effects of adding a child to your family who is older than your oldest child. It can, for some children, be a huge adjustment and cause added stress to an already stressful situation, so we will have to look at things on a case-by-case basis. since Brody just turned two, the odds are slim that we'll get a referral for a sibling group with all siblings under his age, but it does seem to be the year of multiple births, so we aren't throwing that option out. (As a side note, the Pregnancy Care Center, at its annual banquet, reported several multiple births--one set of triplets was SAVED in China due to their efforts there--and my friend, Kelley--one of the funniest people I've ever met--is pregnant with twins! BTW, she will be a hilarious and amazing mother! I can't wait to read her future status updates...)

Secondly, we really think it would be good to adopt at least two children from the same place so they will be with someone familiar to them through the adoption process and later in life as they learn about their home country. I touched on this in my last post, but when a child is adopted it's not all smooth sailing ahead. There are some serious adjustment and attachment "issues" which must be dealt with, and I am of the opinion that it might be better for the children if they have a sibling/friend alongside them who can relate. I haven't really done much research in that area, so I probably will do that in the future. However, as of right now, we have told our agency we are open to siblings, and if the time comes and we have a referral for siblings we will do some intense investigating and Truth-seeking to determine what's best.

As I have said, the chances are pretty slim that we will get a referral for siblings, but crazier things have happened, and we seem to be the asterisk in most situations, so we shall see.

I leave you with one of Brody's favorite words (which he uses when he has a cup of juice in his hand): Cheers!